In Memory of Gordon Wright - Webmaster of the Berne History Project

Gordon Wright, age 58, of Lone Rock, died on Friday October 21, 2011 at the Kossuth Regional Health Center in Algona. Funeral services will be 10:30 AM Tuesday at the Lone Rock Presbyterian Church, with Rev. Glenn Wilson officiating. Burial will be in Fenton Township Cemetery of rural Lone Rock, with Military Rites conducted by the Kerr-Hamerstrom American Legion Post #557 of Lone Rock. Visitation will be 5 - 7 pm Monday at the Lone Rock Presbyterian Church.

Gordon John Wright was born on April 26, 1953 in Troy, NY, the son of Harvey and Shirley (Graham) Wright. When he was eight, his parents moved to the southern California area, settling in Garden Grove. He joined the Navy at 17 and spent his 20 year career on the East coast, mostly in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Virginia. He was a missile technician on nuclear submarines and spent nearly 4 years underwater, 72 days at a time. While in the navy, he married Corrine Mandojana, and made a family with her son Danial and their two children, Rachel and Jeremy. After retiring from the navy, a string of jobs landed him in Colorado where he was a partner in a computer software company. There he met Joan Leaneagh in January of 2000 and they were married in Las Vegas, NV on June 9, 2001. After the sale of his business, Gordon wanted to pursue a lifelong dream to live in an RV and travel fulltime, a dream he shared with his father. Starting in 2004, Gordon and Joan did just that for 7 years, dropping in a couple times a year to see Joan's mother in Lone Rock. In 2008, they purchased a project house in Lone Rock and he has been working on restoring it. Gordon loved traveling, his children and grandchildren, the family cats and was known as a computer whiz.

He is survived by his wife Joan, of Lone Rock; his step-son Danial (Wendy) Mandojana from Rhode Island, daughter Rachel (Kevin) Ruddock of Rhode Island and son Jeremy (Jennifer) of Virginia; six grandchildren: Cassie, Kyle, Brandon, Dylan, Zachary and Madison; two sisters, Dee Dee (Fred) Speicher and Debbie (Charlie) Heintz, both of California; one adopted brother, Mike and two adopted sisters, Denita and Yuridia, his Aunt Gladys of NY and three cousins: Billy, Nancy, and Susan. He was preceded in death by his parents and a sister, Darcy.

Sarah Gordon

Sarah Gordon is doing an incredible job promoting small farms. Congratulations, Sarah on your very impressive talk on TED.

Berne School No. 1

This is Berne School No. 1 taken by P. J. Messer. Courtesy of Timothy J. Albright. Does anyone have another copy of this picture with the year it was taken and identity of any of the teachers or kids?

Echoes of a New York revolt

Ignoring the public's grievances can wear down the government

By BRUCE W. DEARSTYNE, Commentary Published in the Times Union, Saturday, November 26, 2011

The Hilltowns of western Albany County — Berne, Knox, Rensselaerville, Westerlo — usually are models of snow-covered fields, picturesque woods and charming rural life this time of year. But in December 1839, they were invaded twice — once by a sheriff's posse, once by the state militia — to suppress an armed rebellion of tenant farmers who were staging a rent strike and trying to pressure their landlord, Stephen Van Rensselaer IV, to sell them the farms they worked.

The anti-rent movement embroiled New York's political life for decades. Its historical insights about government failure to confront problems head on are relevant today.

The Van Rensselaers were one of several landed families, or "patroons," who held permanent title to thousands of acres in eastern New York through Dutch and English colonial land grants. Tenant resentment built up over many years. Tenants felt they paid too high rent and challenged the validity of the archaic colonial titles.

Stephen Van Rensselaer, who inherited lands that included much of Albany County when his father died in 1839, disavowed his father's policy of leniency for late or partial rent payments and demanded that the rent be paid in full. The farmers' pent-up anger exploded.

Soon, nearly 10,000 tenants in Albany, Rensselaer and other eastern counties began protesting and withholding rent. Farmers organized in secret and took to wearing disguises made of calico cloth. Calling themselves "Indians," they chanted "Down With the Rent!" at mass rallies and threatened the landlords' agents.

In the fall of 1839, they chased deputy sheriffs sent to evict tenants for nonpayment of rent out of the Hilltowns.

That December, the Albany County sheriff assembled a posse that included some of Albany's most prominent citizens, former Gov. William Marcy, and John Van Buren, son of President Martin Van Buren. An armed, jeering mob of more than a thousand farmers turned them back near Reidsville.

The alarmed Albany authorities appealed to Gov. William Seward. He dispatched the state militia and called for the farmers to disperse, but he also promised a study of the manorial system. Armed resistance melted away as the militia advanced into the hills.

But Seward's study committee dithered and the troubles resumed. An Albany County deputy was set upon by a mob of "Indians" near Rensselaerville in September 1841 and forced to hide in the woods for two days. In August 1845, a Delaware County deputy was killed. The violence tarnished the anti-rent cause and led to a number of arrests and stepped-up campaigns against the "Indians" by local authorities and the state militia.

The anti-renters escalated their appeals to the state. They argued that the manor system was a drag on New York's agricultural economy, endorsed political candidates who supported their cause and organized their own political party. But state government equivocated. The two major parties, Whigs and Democrats, postured for the tenants' votes but neither crusaded to end the patroon system. Seward soon lost interest.

His successor, Gov. William Bouck, met with a thousand angry tenants in West Sand Lake in August 1844 and offered to mediate. But the farmers mistrusted him and the landlords thought he was too soft on the lawless anti-renters.

Gov. Silas Wright (1845-1846) declared Delaware County in a state of insurrection after the murder of the deputy sheriff there, but also pardoned some of the convicted anti-renters. Gov. John Young (1847-1848) pardoned remaining imprisoned leaders but did not attack the manorial status quo.

The state Legislature voted to tax the landlords' manor income and restrict evictions for non-payment. But they banned armed, disguised people from public highways and authorized the governor to aid sheriffs overwhelmed by anti-rent forces. Proposals to end the patroon system were debated but never passed.

Court decisions shielded the landlords against initiatives to invalidate their titles or use state eminent domain authority to seize their land. An 1846 state constitutional convention added an amendment to restrict future — but not existing — long-term land leases.

The issue gradually died down, mostly through quiet compromises where resentful tenants bought their farms from weary landlords. But remnants of organized resistance continued to the late 1880s.

The lessons of the anti-rent movement resonate today.

History shows that government often procrastinates or chips away at contentious issues rather than addressing them head on. Cynical politicians hope the issue will fade or voters will blame their opponents for inaction.

But kicking the can down the road usually ill serves the public interest. People who feel they are denied justice over a long period of time may become confrontational and even resort to violence.

The issue may finally be resolved but it may take decades of agitation and dispute, and exact a heavy toll.

Today, the federal government is deadlocked over taxation, spending and other issues. The two major political parties undermine and discredit each other. Drift and uncertainty substitute for policy.

People take to the streets in the Occupy movement to demand government action. Police arrest unruly demonstrators. Reformers call for higher taxes on the rich.

Similar issues were simmering as the county and state armed forces made their way warily into the snowy Hilltowns 172 years ago.

• Bruce W. Dearstyne, Ph.D., of Guilderland, is an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. He previously was a professor at Maryland and a program director at the New York State Archives.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Echoes-of-a-New-York-revolt-2294245.php#ixzz1f2KRjbCx

• Huyck Preserve receives $67,680 grant to repair and improve trails-

The Huyck Preserve and Biological Research Station received a $67,680 grant award from New York State Parks' Recreational Trail Program (funded by the Federal Highway Administration).The funds will be used to steward our existing trails, including: fixing the beaver flooded trail around Lincoln Pond, creating a bridge over the creek at the SW corner of Lake Myosotis, erosion prevention measures, mitigating wet areas of trail and making the trail to the lower falls bridge wheelchair accessible.

This work will complement the new 4 mile long Partridge Path trail, new signs, kiosks and trail map opening this spring.

FOR FARMERS AND LOCAL FOLKS

Small Farms Update

The Small Farms update is intended as a resource for farmers and agricultural service providers in New York and is provided to you by Cornell's Small Farms Program. If you have resources or events you would like to include, please forward these to Violet Stone (vws7@cornell.edu) or Anu Rangarajan (ar47@cornell.edu). Thank you again for your interest and support of small farms in New York.

• Small Farms Cornell
• NE Beginning Farmers
• Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education

Small dairy farms making a come back

Robert Duncan is a fourth-generation dairy farmer. Yet he's new to the business.

Duncan's father abandoned dairy farming and sold his cows in 1972, as a wave of consolidation swept the industry and led many small producers to give up the only life they had known.

But Duncan, 49, revived his family heritage in July, launching a small milking and bottling operation with hopes to feed a consumer hunger for locally raised foods.

He's not alone: The state Department of Agriculture and Markets says the number of small dairy plants in the state has doubled in just two years, bringing the total to about 80. The state has issued 34 permits for new plants this year alone -- despite the down economy.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Pint-size-dairies-pumped-849450.php#ixzz1ApqFXiB9

History of the Francis-Turner Farm

By Ruth F. Wehner

The farm is located on Francis Rd, Knox, NY. It is south of Rock Rd, near West Rd. Its lower boundary is on the Knox-Berne borderline with one lot, called the crick lot, in Berne Township. The “crick” is The Foxenkill. The farm probably lies on the torn part of the 1787 map of the area, possibly #612. The original settler of the land is not known at this time. The farm is shown on the 1866 map near the Foxenkill as G. Marselas.

My great grandfather, William Turner (Wm. L. Turner), was born in England and came to America in 1827 at the age of two with his family and lived many years on a farm on West Mountain (no. 444 on the 1787 map). He married Catharine Kniskern in July 1854 at the old Kniskern Farmhouse on Cross Rd. They had a family of 6 children- 1 boy and five girls. He and Catharine purchased the farm in 1876 from G. G. Merselis. (Gerardus Groesbeck Merselis).

In 1887 William Turner tore down the existing barn (a Dutch barn) and built an English barn, which is still standing (2011). It was built of sawed timber and a few hand- hewn beams from the old barn. It has an upper and lower level. Since the barn is built on a slope and has a barn bridge, there is access to the upper level by horse and wagon or tractor. The present owner Jay T. Francis, great, great grandson of William, has restored it. The farm when William purchased it consisted of 120 acres. His son Jay P. inherited the farm when his father died in September of 1896. On February 3rd 1910 he sold 35 acres north of Rock Road and east of West Rd. to George Bassler.

The farmhouse was built in 1832, probably by Gerardus’s father, Gerrit N. Merselis. It was said that when the house was finished the owner walked around the house once and died soon after, not having very long to enjoy the house. Gerrit died Jan 16, 1832. The present day farmhouse consists of the newer farmhouse built in 1832 and the older one built around 1780. The older house was located north of the present barn and former apple orchard, which placed it closer to Rock Road. The entrance road to the farm ran south from Rock Road to that house. It was later extended down the hill to the new house. The older house was moved to the site of the newer house traveling on logs. The older house was placed at the rear of and attached to the newer one and was used as a summer kitchen and a wood house. One of the rooms on the upper floor was used for spinning, weaving and like industries by the Turner girls. The kitchen had a fireplace and brick oven on one wall They are no longer there. The present owners of the farm, Jay T. and Evelyn Francis, have restored both the old and “new” parts of the house beautifully. The older part is now separate living quarters.

When William bought the farm he desired to have a road running east to rte. 156. (The road up the hill to Rock Road proved too difficult in winter and spring). It was necessary to obtain a right of way through Ball’s Woods to the east. When that was done William and Jay started to clear the way and build the road. They worked on it off and on for some years.

Jay had one child, Alice. She married Lee A. Francis of Cooperstown, NY in January of 1919 at the farmhouse. The farm has stayed in the family ever since William purchased it in 1876. It was farmed many years by Jay C. Francis and Andy Francis. There is a sap bush in the northwestern part of the farm. For many years William and Jay gathered sap and boiled it down to syrup and maple sugar in the old sap house. Milk was kept cold in spring water in the milk house. In the beginning milk was taken to the old cheese factory on rte. 156. Later it was sold to a milk company in Albany. Sheep were kept many years and the wool sold. Timothy, alfalfa and corn were grown. There were horses, cows, pigs and chickens.

Land on the west side of the farm near Rock Road was set aside for a one-room schoolhouse. (Stony Brook School I believe was the name of it). It is now a home. Alice Turner attended school there and later taught there a few years.

There is a spring located up the hill northeast of the farmhouse. Water was piped to the house and former milk house from the spring (gravity flow system). I believe that the system was in place when William bought the farm in 1876. The Turners named the farm Flowing Springs Farm and later it was called Ever Flowing Springs Farm. There is another spring located near the site of the old farmhouse. That water is now piped to the barnyard.

The main farmhouse has wide floorboards cut from centers of trees from the farm woods. The ceilings downstairs are 10 feet high. There is beautiful woodwork throughout the house. It is especially nice in the living room and in the family room. The house has a cupola large enough to hold a table and chair, a hidden underground room possibly used during the anti-rent wars or as a stop for the underground railroad, a flagstone walk running from the old wood house and across the front of the house to the barn yard. The basement floor is of flagstone also.

There was an old wagon house near the barn that fell down some years ago. Jay P. had a garage built in 1928, when he purchased his Chrysler. That is still standing. There used to be a smoke house near the garage, where meats were smoked. That is gone. A pigsty near the garage was moved across the front yard, on logs, to a spot nearer the barn and made into a hen house. A new barn has been built recently opposite the old one to store farm machinery.

At the farmhouse there are two items brought to America by Peter Turner, William’s father. They are a long wooden chest with P. T. on it and a grandfather’s clock from Macclesfield, England. All the family’s belongings were placed in the chest including the works for the clock. William and Jay P.’s diaries and an old map of the farm are located at the farmhouse also. (The case for the clock was made locally).

The farm has been greatly loved by the family.

Information for this article was gathered from William and Jay P. Turner’s diaries,

Reidsville Quarry owned and operated by the Brate and Flagler Families

At the turn of the century, the Reidsville Quarry was a bustling site employing between 100 – 150 men who worked to produce bluestone that was used as sidewalks in the City of Albany. Constant streams of horses with wagons carried the flagging stones to Albany and more recently just to the Village of Voorheesville after railroad tracks were built there. Paul Giebitz owns this area now, and his company, Heldeberg Bluestone, is still busy cutting and drilling bluestone in its Mt. Grippy quarry. An article written by Shiela Stempel, “Heldeberg Bluestone paves the way through historic years,” may be found in the September 23, 1975 issue of The Helderberg Sun.

• 

  Fuller and Brate Families
• 

  224 Lark St. in Albany N.Y.

• 

  Truck #4 with Billy Ernst standing by the fender
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  Reidsville Blue flagstone Quarry 2 - Courtesy of Timothy J. Albright

Altamont Enterprise Oct 19 1934

1933 History of Reidsville

REIDSVILLE GREW FROM HAMLET TO A THRIVING CENTER OF MOUNTAIN INDUSTRY, THEN SLID BACK TO HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Little Village in Helderberg Hills Once Boasted Two Churches, Two Hotels, Several Stores; Abandoned Church Now Monument to Town That Slipped Away

Editor's Note — The following article, written by Inez Shook, appeared in the Sunday Knickerbocker Press, Sept. 16, 1934.

Dust lies like a grey shroud over the interior of a little old church high in the Helderberg hills. It spreads over the huge Bible open on the rough, low pulpit; over the organ with its muted echoes of music that once swelled an accompaniment to the chorus of young voices from choir seats on each side the raised platform; over the twin stoves at the rear of the room, and the sedate rows of square, low-backed pews.

This abandoned church is a monument to a town that died. A town that grew from hamlet to a thriving center of mountain industry, then slipped back to its humble beginnings as time and progress stole its reason for existence. Now, only this crumbling building and vine-tangled quarries in the hills outside remain as testimony to the days when Reidsville was a thriving community of several hundred souls, and could boast two churches, two hotels and several stores.

Augustus H. Salisbury knows the story of Reidsville. Mr. Salisbury lives in a neat grey house on the narrow unpaved road that runs through Reidsville, and can look out his windows at the vacant lots where business places once nourished. He knew as familiar sounds the voices of men making merry in the hotel across the way after a day of toil or during the long winter lay-off. Many times he has watched, the four-horse stage from Albany swing to a whip-cracking halt before William Stoneburner's Inn.

Augustus Salisbury, too, is the man who can tell you about the blue stone Quarries that once kept Reidsville "on the map". He went to work there as a youth of 20, and has watched the in dustry dwindle, from its onetime high peak. And it was he who made the last stand with the quarry industry, to which he was forced to hang up the "out of business" sign a year ago. "Cement did it," Mr, Salisbury observed. Reidsville had the finest blue stone quarries in this section of the Helderbergs, and was the center of the business for over 50 years.

"The men who worked in the quarries around town and in the old Grippie quarry near South Berne all used to live in Reidsville. We had two churches, the Methodist and the Christian - full every Sunday, too- two hotels, several stores and a street lined with houses. "We shipped blue stone from Voorheesville as far away as Philadelphia. Albany, however, was our best market. We also shipped some stone for use as rough boxes.

"But all that ended about 15 years ago. The quarries were kept open until June, 1933, but business was dead."

A. H. Salisbury went to work in the Reidsville quarries nearly 40 years ago. He learned how to blast away top rock, to find the natural seams of blue stone about 10 feet below. Then came the "driving up" with wedges and rolling out of the slabs. "Tracing up" was next, when holes were bored at intervals and the stones cut into required sizes.

This was "quarry cut" stone. Sometimes there would be an order for rock chiseled into smooth edges. Horses crept down over the steep, winding roads into the valley below with their wagon loads of cut stone. It was a 12-hour haul to Albany, and a teamster had many a spare moment for philosophic musing on the journey.

In the early days, the cut rock was loaded into the waiting wagons by hand. Later, derricks were used. Aaron Hotaling and William Brate were the first operators of the 75-year old quarries, as Mr. Salisbury recalls. They were followed by other holders, including John Flagler and the Albany County Blue Stone Company for which Mr. Salisbury worked as a foreman for 21 years. When this company gave up the quarries, Mr. Salisbury took them over. By this time, however, blue stone window sills, curbing and sidewalks were becoming outmoded. Cement and artificial stone usurped its place. For a while, Mr. Salisbury sent truckloads of stone to Saugerties for shipment to New York. He Also kept wheels running over the routes to Bennington, Vt, and Massachusetts towns. Then there was the coping for the Schuyler Mansion and Fort Crailo which he supplied. Blue stone has an antique appearance and is popular in the reconstruction of old stone buildings, he explained.

About six years ago, the Lane Construction Company resurfaced 10 miles of the Rensselaerville road and 10 of the Thacher Park-New Salem highway with rock from the Reidsville quarry. Last year, there was an order for blue stone as backing for the new Trinity Methodist Church of Albany. And from Stockbridge, Mass., came a few orders for blue stone to be used in "crazy walks."

But the groans of laboring derricks died from the quarries, and loaded trucks rumbled less and less on the roads to the valley cities. Quarries that had run from April to November every year closed in the middle of the summer.

In June, 1933, the last wagon load of stone trundled out of the village. Mr. Salisbury turned his eyes toward other fields of endeavor. Cement the material that ruined Reidsville and his own business furnished one job. He constructed over 30 of the cookng fireplaces set up last summer in Thacher Park. And he has found many other places to use the skill developed in the quarry town. But rotting wagon tongues lie half buried in the stagnant pools that fill the abandoned quarries. Reidsville, which offered Frederick W. Conger and William Brate as candidates for sheriff of Albany County, has shrunk into a roadside hamlet once more. Many homes have burned or been torn down to leave gaping vacancies along the road. The hotels and other business places have disappeared. Stone cutters have died or moved away from the village they made. Besides August Salisbury, there are only Adam and Charles Otto to recall working days in the quarries. Coat hooks in the entry of the Christian Church erected in 1821 hang empty, and Wilkins and David Crawford, former trustees, look wistfully upon its crumbling walls and sagging pews.

Belongs to the Past

Services are still conducted in the Methodist Church on the hill. There is a tiny schoolhouse, and there are a few homes to send pupils there. But these houses belong to a new type of Resident: Newcomers who never knew that thriving community which sent wagonloads of stone down to valley railroads running to great cities of the East.

Reidsville belongs to the past. A surely as the Reidsville Rural Cem etery on the hill sheltering 15 soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic and that young Clifton Flagler, nephew of A. H. Salisbury, who died on World War battlefield in the 55th Regiment of the United States Marines. That cemetery across which Nathaniel Newberry flung a jest that brought a grim return.

Newberry helped build the cemetery. When it was finished he shook with deep laughter and cried:"Bring 'em on now. Your cemetery is ready for business."

It was Nathaniel Newberry who rested in the first grave.

Memorial Day, Andersonville

Hill towns during the Civil War

Even though it was not a battleground, the Civil War had a devastating effect on the hill towns. Perhaps over half of the men from the Hilltowns that enlisted either died, went missing and were presumed dead, or were permanently disabled in the war. The only monument to the dead is in the Rensselaerville Cemetery where on July 4, 1867, a 17-foot marble Civil War monument was dedicated to the 29 soldiers from the Town of Rensselaerville who died in the Civil War.

For story of how the men of each of the Hilltowns served their country during the Civil War, click on the links below.

[ Rensselaerville ][ Berne ][ Knox ][ Westerlo ]

Civil War Memorial Project

The year 2011 is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Several hundred Hilltown men served in the Union Army with a casualty rate of maybe 25% killed or injured. It had an big impact on the Towns and their families. We are writing biographies on each soldier. These biographies will part of Civil War Memorial Project that will be published on this site. The Memorial will be in three parts:

• The events leading up to the war with emphasis on why the men in upstate NY seemed compelled to join the army of Father Abraham.
• The history of the units and their battles.
• Biographies of the Hilltown men: Thanks to many people, especially Betty Fink and Pam Molle, a list of Hilltown men in the Civil War is complete, and biographies have been started for each of them. Right now some of the biographies consist of just the basic facts gleaned from Civil War Records.

The editor for the Civil War Memorial Project is now Betty Fink. It is now a work in progress.

HELP NEEDED ON CIVIL WAR PROJECT

We need one or more volunteers for each of the towns to flesh out the biographies. If you see something below you think you might be interested in, contact me before beginning so I can coordinate who is doing what and prevent duplication.

• One of the sources would be the Hilltowns Genealogy posted on the Berne Historical Project web site. This can be done by anyone familiar with how to update biographies in this project. It is not difficult and I can help you learn.
• If the men lived until the latter part of the 19th C. or longer, I would like on line newspaper archives, such as the Altamont Enterprise, or Albany papers posted on the http://www.fultonhistory.com/ Fulton History] site, searched for additional information, such as obituaries.
• We also need someone with access to census data, such as that posted on Ancestry.com and other sites, to add census information for the Civil War men.
• Family researchers are asked to write or contribute information on their ancestors who served. We need copies of photos, letters written home from the soldiers, death notices, pension requests, military papers, medals, pictures of tombstones, family stories, etc.
• We need someone to take photos of the headstones of Civil War veterans to add to their biographies so we will have them available for our book. This should be done by cemetery. Volunteer to do a cemetery and I will try to get you a list of the CW men buried there.

HELP NEEDED ON HILLTOWN VETERANS

One of the many projects that I am pushing is the collection of the names of the men and women who served in various wars. I was wondering how we could do that. Rich Hungerford came up with the idea of searching the Altamont Enterprise archives which are on line. Another great newspaper archives is Fulton History site which has the archives of dozens of upstate New York newspapers.

On line newspaper archives are invaluable to librarians, historians and family researchers. They are a wonderful source for researching local history, such as the who served in what wars, the history of a local organization, such as a library, grange, church or fire department.

If someone wants to write a biography of a grandparent or great grandparent, just search on their name. In fact each article mentioning their name came be copied and pasted into a digital scrapbook on a person or event. Then that could be used as a source for writing a biography.

OTHER HELP NEEDED

• Someone to add Van Rensselaer Lot numbers to each of the towns pages. This is a very simple task that takes no special computer skills. Let me know if you can do this and I will tell you how.
• A volunteer with knowledge and an interest in Westerlo to participate in this site and post articles. There is a book on the history of Westerlo, that if we can get permission, it would be great to have some of the items from it posted here. It would also be very nice to have someone scan old photos and documents from the collection of Westerlo Historical Society. There is also a wonderful compilation of cemetery records done a number of years ago by then town historian Thurman Bishop, Jr. For starters, his description of the cemeteries and their location should be added to the site. He also listed veterans who are buried in Westerlo cemeteries. These veterans should be listed on the Westerlo pages. We need someone to take photos of the headstones of Civil War veterans to add to their biographies so we will have them available for our book.